There are many different ways to get your business on the net. Blogging has become very popular and the number of blogs continues to grow. Having an internet presence for your business it an important marketing tool, even if you only offer your services locally. With all the different website and blogging tools, how do you choose which one to work with? It is important to have a clear idea of your business’s needs and yours. The platform you choose needs to fit your needs and skills.

Does your business need a blog or a static website? Blogs are normally updated weekly with posts or articles related to your business. A static website isn’t.

Do you have the time to keep a blog up? If you are super busy, you may not have the time to write blog posts. If your business continually has new things to share, you may want to hire someone to blog for you.

Do you know how to install or set up a website or blog? With all the different platforms and web, building tools and a little patients just about anyone can put up their own site. If you don’t have the time or desire to do it yourself, you can hire someone.

Over the years, I have tried blogger, wordpress, drupal, joomla, and a few others. My favorite is wordpress with drupal being my second favorite. It is easy for DIY site set up. Before you set up your site know what your needs are and research different platforms to find the best match. I can tell you from personal experience that it is very disappointing to take the time to set up a site only to discover after all your hard work that it doesn’t meet your needs.

A plan!
My email box is full of emails from people telling me about how they are ready to start their business. Then they ask me a ton of questions. I enjoy answering their questions. From what they ask I can tell that their minds are going in a million different directions and they have forgotten something important. They almost always make the mistake of skipping the first step.

Before you set up shop, even before you get any license or selling permits, you must have a plan. Some people get a little intimidated by the thought of writing a business plan. It really isn’t that difficult. If you don’t need to get a loan to start your business, no one but you ever needs to see it. Basically, your plan needs to state clearly what your goals are with your business, how you will accomplish those goals, who your target market is and how you will reach them. Of course you can add as much detail to your plan as you can. The more clearly you can envision your business the easier it will be to create it.

You can find free business plan templates on sites like SCORE and other places around the net. If you are only creating the plan for yourself, have a little fun with it. You may find it easier to see your plan as an art project. Once you have your plan and you know where you are going then you are ready to move on to the next step. A good business plan will help you keep your business moving in the right direction for you.

This is an article I have posted on Associated Content.

My clients are often at a loss of how to reach their goals. Some of them are even unsure of what their goals are. To help them get focused and on track, I have them create a goal or dream notebook. I have found that when people have a special place to keep their goals they are more likely to reach them. To quickly explain why everyone needs a goal/dream notebook I came up with my ‘ Top 5 Reasons’ list. Everyone needs a dream or goal notebook to clarify, organize, inspire, and motivate them.

Your goal or dream notebook can:

1. Give you a place to clearly express your goal.
The ability to clearly state what we want is key to getting what we want. When you know what you are after, you can see every opportunity. When you can share your dream with others, they will know how they can help you.

Read More on AC..

Creativity holds a strange place in our society. It is both admired and looked down on. Parents normally don’t want their children to grow up to be artists. At the same time when they see art they love they admire the work and the artist.

Why is this? I’m not sure maybe it has something to do with preconceptions that artist are weird flighty people.  I don’t even know when that misconception began.  When did artist change from the honored people that recorded history, created sacred objects, and preformed a valued service?  What is it about creativity that makes us both love and dislike it?

I think it may have something to do with the idea that only some people or certain activities are creative. Guess what, everyone is creative!  It is true, I’m not lying. The creativity that brings about beautiful works of art is the same creativity that brings about the solution to a problem. It is what helps us write book and successfully budget our money. It is inside all of us waiting to be called to action. For many of us it is like a bit of coal hiding a diamond inside.

This elitist view of creativity is rippling out negativity into our lives. It keeps us from using our imagination to live our dreams and overcome life’s day to day obstacles.  Being connected to our creative centers keeps us open to inspiration and leads to AH HA moments.

It also feeds our passion for our project that keeps us working, even when we don’t want to.  Creativity simply is bringing something new into existence.  It can be any new thing a new song, new photo, new way of dealing with customer service, or new marketing plan. Creativity is not for the sole purpose of making art.

We all have our own process we work through when being creative. Taking the time to learn what your process is makes it easier to start the process whenever you need to.  This helps us avoid getting stuck and frustrated when we are forced to produce a product by a dead line or create something we wouldn’t normally choose to.  It may be hard to think of creativity this way, but it is inside you waiting to be mined.

There are many things you can do to reconnect with your creative center. I say reconnect because you were born connected and stayed connected until someone told you that creativity was bad or only for special people.

Start paying attention to what you are doing or how you are doing things when inspiration strikes or solutions and ideas come easily to you.  Try to meditate or do some other calm relaxing activity daily or at least regularly. Stop telling yourself that you are not creative. Negative self talk kills creativity and our dreams! Be kind and loving to yourself and do something you really enjoy doing as often as you can.

I get emails from people all the time telling me about their business problems. Most of the time these problems stem from a lack of planning before they even started their business. Knowing what kind of business you want to start isn’t the only thing you need to know. You need details not just a general idea.  Sometimes people let their excitement over take them and skipped important business planning steps.

You can save yourself some future headaches by taking your time at the beginning and planning everything.  Before you move forward with your business ask yourself some questions.

Why do I want to start this business?

What do I need/want from this business?

Who needs this product or service?

How will this product/service help my customers?

This may seem a little basic but it’s often these things that get over looked. Starting a new business can be stressful. Clearly stating your idea and goals will help you to be sure that the other pieces of your business, like DBA or LLC fit with your overall business vision.

Creating day after day can be both fulfilling and draining. When you are in the creative zone, everything flows and you feel like you can go on forever. When you get stuck or knocked out of your groove all of your creative mojo seems to drain away.  All of your projects stall and blocks start popping up whenever you try to work. How devastating! All this horror can be avoided by keeping your creative well full and flowing.

Keeping connected to your creative center and your well full is simple. It all comes down to good self care. Give yourself chanced to relax and de-stress every day. Give yourself a special treat or take yourself out on a date. Doing things that you love keeps positive energy flowing and helps you to create. While you are busy enjoying treating yourself, the solution to your creative block is likely to make its self known. These activities will also allow inspiration to flow into your well and keep it full. There is inspiration everywhere waiting for you to take notice and put it to use.

Every one of us will have different ways of dealing with obstacles. If you find what works for someone else doesn’t work for you, don’t worry. Keep trying new things until you find what does work for you.  One of my favorite things to do is to go for a nice long walk all by myself. It’s good for my body and it clears my mind. I have always found that some sort of physical activity is a great way to get my mind working.  So, give yourself a break and let the solutions come to you.

Many aspiring authors have heard the horror stories of how difficult it can be to get published. These stories help make self publishing seem very appealing. There are many successful self published authors out there.

Before deciding if self publishing is the right thing for you, be sure to learn everything you can about publishing first. You alone will be in charge of making sure your manuscript is its very best, promoting and marketing your book, formatting the layout, designing the cover and all the other steps involved in publishing your book.

The growing popularity of self publishing has also lead to a growing list of businesses providing services to writers. Each company has its own services, pros and cons. researching each one will help you choose what will work best for you. There are print on demand companies that will print your book as needed. So if your customer orders one, they only print one, if your customer orders 50 they will print 50. There are also companies that require you to order a minimum number of books each time you order.

Most of these companies are fairly inexpensive. In my research I found that most of the cheaper companies own the ISBN number assigned to your book. That makes them the listed publisher of your book and they pay you in royalties. You can buy your own ISBN number and be listed as the publisher of your book. This truly gives you full control over your work.

Before starting out on your big publishing adventure, do your homework and draw yourself a map. Creating a solid plan for getting your book published and what you need to do afterward will help you be more successful at self publishing.

After all the hard work of getting your book in print is done, what will you do next? Research and planning will help you answer that question. Remember you will be in charge of getting you book into stores and in front of readers.  There may be a learning curve in self publishing, but the education is worth it. So roll up your sleeves and dig in!

In a perfect world artist would always be able to create things they love and have an endless supply of eager buyers. Unfortunately it doesn’t always work out that way. It seems that we either have starving artists or artist that give over everything just to please potential customers.

Our culture also has a tendency to spin both of these artist types in a negative light. If you create only what you love and become the starving artist, then you must also be crazy or a looser. If you create only to please the market and actually sell things, then you must be a sell out and not a real artist any way.  Why do these ridiculous opinions invade our culture?

What happened to the act of creating being thought of as something sacred by everyone? Why isn’t the person that hand carves a bowl to eat from held as high as the person makes something beautiful to look at? As a creative person and a coach I really dislike society’s belief that some forms of creating are better than others.

My Aunt was an award winning artist but the galleries in town wouldn’t show her work because she had never had a major showing in some big city. They didn’t care that her work was beautiful or that she even had pieces hanging in the vacation home of the president at that time.  What is the benefit of this type of attitude in the art world? There isn’t one! I think that this harms not only creators but to all of us. Think of all of the amazing things we miss out on.

This part of how the art world, our everyday world, is something that I have never been able to understand. I realize that everything an artist creates will not be loved by every person, that isn’t the point. We as human beings with our internal drive to create things should be able to do so with being both loved and outcast by society. Does this seem odd to anyone else? I know this post has turned into a bit of a rant, but it is my blog and I can do what I want! Lol.

Taking pictures of your handmade jewelry can be a real chore. Most of the jewelry makers I know, including myself, have had trouble getting great pictures. Some of the most common problems are blur, yellowing, glare, and poor lighting.

Blur can be caused my several things like, unsteady camera, holding the camera too close to the jewelry, or being too far away and zooming in. The best way to avoid these problems is to steady your camera with a tripod or stack of books and use the macro setting on your camera. The macro setting allows you to place your camera very close to the jewelry and still allow the camera to focus on it.

Having you jewelry photos come out with a yellowish look to them is from light bulbs. Regular household light bulbs give off light with a yellow tint. To avoid this use white bright light bulbs like flouresent or the energy saving swirl bulbs. If you have the chance take your photos outside on a sunny day. Sun light will give bright clear true colors to your photos. There are lamps that simulate sunlight. I haven’t tried these to see how they work with jewelry photography. It may be worth experimenting with. Most digital cameras have a white balance setting, ajusting this can give you better photos. Some photo editing software also has white balance you can play with.

You want your jewelry to sparkle and shine, but not glare. Using a light box or tent is the best way to control glare. I have seen jewelry sized light tents for sale on ebay for over 100.00! The good news is you can make your own. Depending on the size you need you can use a milk jug or a tote. The opaque plastic will cut down the glare from your lights and help you keep jewelry sparkle. Sometimes simply placing a piece of white paper in front of your lights will defuse the light enough to cut out the glare. It is key to avoid using the flash on your camera. This will only add to the glare.

Household lamps aren’t as bright as professional photography lamps. This can leave you photos coming out too dark. I use about three desk lamps and then lighten the pictures further in photoshop. If I had more lamps I would use them! I have found that if I hold one lamp above and a little behind me, it seems to allow the camera to pull in more light.

I have seen people using their scanners to get images of their handmade jewelry. It is not my favorite way of getting images of jewelry. The shadow of the jewelry always looks like blur and takes away from the picture. I have tried it with my scanner and it doesn’t work. If you have no camera, do try out your scanner, yours may work better than mine. The main thing is that people can clearly see what your handmade jewelry looks like. Get close ups, get details, and get different angles.

Keep experimenting until you find a set up that works for you.